Burnt Trees, Bug Cakes and Bedtime Stories
by becstaarrrr
Summary: Mycroft wants to sell the Holmes boys' childhood home. After finally getting Sherlock to (grudgingly) help with sorting things out, it becomes apparent that Sherlock isn't that detached from it after all. It brings back some rather fond childhood memories and causes a rather dramatic change of heart.


My entry for the save Undershaw Book thingy (it wasn't published haha). Based on the term 'Empty House' if I remember correctly.  
There was a limit of 3000 words, so it's not perfect - far from it in fact - and all mistakes are my own.

Hope you like it :)

The two brothers stood together, despite having never felt so far apart, both lost in their own thoughts as they looked up at the once loved childhood home. It came with both happy and unhappy memories for both of them, and had John Watson not known the Holmes brothers as well as he did, he may have speculated that a small amount of sentiment was showing on both of their faces.

Not wanting to disturb them in this rare moment in each other's company, when neither was at the other's throat, he stopped a few steps behind them, joining the brothers in looking at the magnificent sight that was holding their attention. A once beautiful 3 storey house sat in its own gardens, with a small wooden fence, broken in some places marked the perimeter of its grounds. It would have been a peaceful view if it hadn't been for the broken bricks, the slowly decaying wooden beams, the peeling paint and the overgrown lawns. It was evident that this house hadn't been looked after in quite a while.

The moment of reflection lasted as long as the younger brother's patience. Sherlock turned on his heels to face Mycroft, his accusing blue-grey eyes showing the annoyance towards his sibling.

"I was in the middle of a case, Mycroft," his voice showing none of the emotion that John was sure existed somewhere in his being.

"I know. But I've been giving you chances for the past two weeks," Mycroft stated, leaning slightly on the umbrella that never failed to accompany him anywhere. Sherlock scoffed and stuck his hands into the pockets of his long coat, causing Mycroft to roll his eyes and continue, "I didn't think I'd have to start threatening you with telling Mummy that you'd come to Christmas dinner this year."

John couldn't help but let a small snigger pass his lips, regretting it the instant that Sherlock turned and gave him the same glare he gave Mycroft.

"Well, I don't understand why you need me," Sherlock shrugged, his gaze wondering back to the house.

"I still have no idea why we're here," John added, venturing a few steps closer to the two brothers.

"Ah, John, well, you see-" Mycroft began, before Sherlock interrupted.

"My dear brother here decided that as our mother moved out of our childhood home a few months ago into a smaller place of residence, we should probably clear the house out of the stuff she could not take with her, and sell it on."

John couldn't help but picture a young Sherlock and Mycroft, complete with umbrella. He would never understand how both of them could remain so emotionless when it came to their old family home. Surely they would be flooded with old memories, even if they weren't as...normal as other children's.

"Yes, I have a developer lined up, interested in converting it into 3 terraced houses." Mycroft smiled to himself, satisfied.

"You can do whatever you want with it," Sherlock said bitterly. "Now can we just get this over and done with?" Without waiting for a reply he turned and strode towards the empty house.

"John, don't stand their looking like an idiot, we've got a case to get back to." And with that, he was gone.

Mycroft pointed his umbrella in the direction that Sherlock had gone, inviting John to go first, rolling his eyes at his younger brother's antics. John couldn't help but give a sympathetic smile.

As Sherlock entered the hall, his coat trailing slightly behind him, nostalgia hit him like a brick wall. He looked around him, taking in the smell of his childhood - slightly musty, but with the hint of home cooking and sulphur dioxide. It clung to the wooden floorboards as if his mother was in the kitchen, cooking her amazing brownies (that Mycroft adored) at that very moment; himself up in his bedroom experimenting with a new chemical he had 'borrowed' at school.

In the hallway, there was a wooden staircase leading up to the second floor, with a banister preventing people from falling from the landing. As Sherlock looked up at it he couldn't help but smile.

_An eight year old Sherlock dangled from the bannister, his small yet slender hands turning white with trying to hang on. He wiggled, trying to get his foot up onto the landing._

"_Sherlock?! What are you doing?! You're going to fall you idiot!" Sherlock just smiled at his older brother by 7 years, standing helpless underneath him._

"_I was practicing jumping ship. If I want to be a pirate when I'm older, I have to know that I can get from one ship to another," he said, his young voice slightly strained as he tried to hoist himself up again._

"_And you thought the best place to do it was jumping from the bannister on the stairs to the landing?" Mycroft replied, amused. He did find the situation rather funny and a welcome break from his Latin homework._

"_Yes, because... If I fell, I would have a true representation of how it would feel to fall off a boat."_

_Mycroft raised an eyebrow._

"_I was going to bring the paddling pool in, but mummy caught me with the hose and wouldn't let me."_

Sherlock grinned at his slightly flawed plan. At least it was good fun…

John joined him in the hallway, wondering why Sherlock was stood staring at the stairs, a small smile playing on his lips. After sensing his presence, Sherlock reverted back to his emotionless demeanour, and bounded into the kitchen at the far end of the hallway, eager to continue with his task.

Mycroft had obviously already started. Sherlock rolled his eyes; his brother really was a control freak.

"Mycroft, you have the whole of Britain round your little finger, why couldn't you get someone else to do this?"

"Sherlock, I thought you'd want a say in what happened to the things that Mummy left here." Mycroft leant his umbrella against the dining table and started putting old vases into a box.

"If I was bothered about it, I would have taken it years ago," Sherlock replied dryly. He turned back to the cupboard he was next to, pulling faces at various cooking implements that clearly he had no interest in.

"_Muumyyyy, this is boring. Can't you get Mycroft to help you?" Sherlock sat on the kitchen worktop, kicking his legs impatiently against the cupboard doors below._

"_No Sherlock, you know how busy Mycroft is with revision at the moment. I'd also quite like to have some actual cake mix left in the bowl when I come to cook it." Mrs Holmes smiled at her younger son as he stuck the wooden spoon back into the bowl._

_The sunlight coming in through the window gave her dark hair an auburn glow, her blue eyes twinkling as her lips turned up into a half smile. Sherlock returned the gesture but continued to kick his legs. He twisted himself slightly so that he could see out of the window behind him. His father was trying to contend with the lawn mower in preparation for the 'family picnic' in the garden._

"_Did you know that Mrs Cook down the road married her third husband last week, and somehow none of them know that any of the others existed?" Sherlock said boldly._

"_Look, Sherlock, don't start this up again. I know Mycroft's trying to improve your skills of deduction, or whatever you boys call it, but you don't have to be questioning everyone." She took the bowl of cake mixture from Sherlock's side and started emptying it into the cake tin._

"_It's really obvious though Mummy, the letter on her table...'_

"_Sherlock! You shouldn't be looking at people's personal documents. We were only there for 5 minutes to give her cardigan back that she left at the town hall and you're telling me that she has a secret second husband?' She looked, bewildered, at the boy; he was obviously confused at the logic behind not looking at people's personal belongings._

"_Yes," he replied, not sure how he was supposed to reply. She shook her head, trying to hide the smile._

"_Go and get your brother and help your father outside, the food will be ready in about half an hour." Sherlock didn't move. "Go!" He sighed, pushing himself off the worktop, landing gracefully on his feet and running to the foot of the stairs._

"_MYCROFT! Mummy says there's food to eat, and we know that that's one of the rare things that's you're good at!" he yelled up the stairs._

"_Sherlock, be nice! I'll have no sympathy when he's got you in a head lock or something!" his mother called after him._

John looked out of the large window - the gardens were even bigger than he had imagined. Over on one side was an ancient oak tree that only had branches on the right hand side. He was about to inquire, but Mycroft was already aware of where he was looking and provided the answer.

"Mummy wanted us to spend some quality time together as a family. Our Father was away a lot. A day spent in the garden was too boring for Sherlock, so he made his own entertainment."

Sherlock hit his head on the cupboard as it shot up in retaliation. Shaking it off and ignoring the dizziness, he defended his younger self.

"It was your fault, Mycroft! You tied me to the tree in the first place! Although it was much more interesting than watching you stuff your mouth with cake." Sherlock smiled smugly, thinking of his earlier memory and what his mother had said, "although cake has always been your weakness, hasn't it Mycroft?"  
The brother in question rolled his eyes and went back to the vases he was trying to clean.

_Mycroft scowled at the garden table. His history homework was there. His pen and pencil were there. His glass of lemonade was there. His cake. Was not. And it wouldn't take a genius to work out that there were only two logical explanations. One - he never had a piece of cake and had imagined the whole thing. Two - Sherlock. He knew which one was more likely and proceeded to retrieve his piece of cake by any method possible._

_He called over to his mother who was lying on a deck chair in the sun, book in hand. "Mummy, have you seen Sherlock?"_

_She took her sunglasses off so that she could look round the garden briefly, "No, he's been worryingly quiet. I dread to think what he's doing." she made no effort to find out though, knowing that Mycroft was already on the case. "He did ask for his magnifying glass earlier though, despite it having been confiscated."_

_Mycroft smiled, "is that from when he decided to bring in the dead pigeon?" His mother nodded in reply and put her sunglasses back on. The elder son decided not to question further; trying to find the boy would probably be more productive._

_If he had his magnifying glass, Mycroft thought, he must have found something. Where would he find something small, that would require a magnifying glass? The grass. If the grass was short he could probably see without the glass... Therefore he must be down the bottom of the garden, where Mummy and Daddy don't bother with cutting the grass!_

"_Sherlock?! Where are you? I know you're down here somewhere. With my cake!" He edged towards the longer grass, sheltered from the sun by the immense oak trees._

_That's when he noticed a small figure bent down, looking over his slice of cake._

"_Sherlock, what have you done to the cake?" he demanded.._

_Sherlock glanced up at him for a second, but quickly went back to looking at the cake with his magnifying glass._

"_It's not like you need it Mycroft," he said matter-of-factly. "The caterpillars I found do. I wanted to see what difference sugar made to their movements.'_

_Mycroft opened his mouth to protest but decided against it when a better idea came to his head..._

Sherlock scowled at his older brother. "You tied me to a tree! In the middle of the garden," he exclaimed, ignoring the smile on both Mycroft's and John's faces. "The only way to get out was to use the magnifying glass and sunlight to burn through the rope."

"And the rest of the tree," John concluded.

"I did give you the option of getting me another piece of cake. It would have been a lot simpler," Mycroft added smugly.

"I was doing you a favour by stopping you eating that piece of cake," Sherlock snapped, annoyed that he was being ganged up on. "I'm going to start on upstairs."

He dropped the utensils in his hands with a clatter, amusing John and Mycroft with his childish ways.

Sherlock stomped up the stairs two at a time, ducking at the top to miss the low ceiling. He looked up and down the long corridor, the same one he had ran down countless times as a child. Whether it was due to his eagerness to experiment, to avoid his brother, or even when running away from his mother with the hair scissors, Sherlock remembered the fun he'd had.

The first door he came to was Mycroft's old room. Despite never getting on, Mycroft had always been there behind that door, waiting for him when the older kids had pushed him around at school, or someone had called him a freak. He pushed the door open slowly.

There was nothing in there, albeit a few cardboard boxes filled with books. When he was younger he'd let Mycroft read to him before bed. Not because he was sentimental, but because reading was too much effort; he'd rather listen to the words and take them in - but only if they were non-fiction, crime, or about pirates. Nothing else.

_He never bothered knocking on his brother's door, simply inviting himself in._

_8pm without fail, Mycroft thought to himself; Sherlock was only ever late when it suited him. He had an encyclopaedia hugged to his chest, and proceeded to jump onto Mycroft's bed, crumpling the once neat sheets._

_The older of the two turned around in his chair, pushing it away from the desk where he had been working hard. He gave a small smile to his younger brother, who looked unusually sweet. His dark curls were messy as usual, and his too-big pyjamas swamped his wiry figure. His light blue eyes twinkled in the light coming from the lamp._

"_Mycroft, what are you looking at me like that for?" Sherlock asked, wriggling uncomfortably under the gaze of his brother._

"_I haven't got time to read to you tonight Sherlock," he replied, giving a sympathic smile and signalling to the desk behind him, where books were piled high. "if I'm going to get anywhere in this world, I've got to be willing to work for it."_

_Sherlock hugged the book closer and frowned. Why could he rely on no-one? Not even Mycroft now. He only required the answer to something he'd read and didn't understand. "But Mycroft, I really need to know something. I don't..."_

"_Please, Sherlock. Why don't you ask me in the morning when I'm a little less stressed?" Mycroft said, placing his fingers to his temples and rubbing them in circles._

"_Mycroft, it's just a quick question, I just want to know if..."  
'Just go away, Sherlock!'_

_It came out snappier than expected and Mycroft regretted it immediately. But he wouldn't take it back; Mycroft Holmes never went back on anything he said. Or maybe he would, if Sherlock was involved. He was only young._

"_Good night Mycroft."_

_Mycroft stood quickly and grabbed the smaller boy's shoulder, stopping him from leaving. He held his hand out for the encyclopaedia, smiling He'd scared his little brother. The one that looked up to him. The one who came to him for advice. He vowed never to do it again._

"_So what was it that you wanted to ask me?" he asked, leading the smaller figure over to his bed and ushering him to sit on his lap._

"_Why does the Earth go round the Sun?" he asked, his twinkling eyes looking up at Mycroft. Mycroft laughed._

"_You don't need to know that, Sherlock. It's pointless really. Would you like me to carry on reading to you?" Sherlock shook his head and thanked his brother._

"_I'm tired now so I am going to bed. Good night," he said bluntly._

That was when Sherlock had stopped relying on his brother for things. The point that he stopped caring for his brother. He would only let him down again. Even if it was just a book, it meant a lot to a 9 year old child like Sherlock. Mycroft would never get in Sherlock's way.

"It's ok to get sentimental, Sherlock," John's voice came from the doorway. Sherlock realised that he was crouched next to the books and stood up with a jolt, brushing the dust from his knees.

"I know it is, John." Sherlock said, shocking John. He smiled at his friend, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "And that's exactly why Mycroft will not be turning our childhood home into terraced houses or a government safe house, or god knows what. Probably a government agency of some sort in reality."

John returned the smile. "I'm glad you said that, Sherlock. Some things are better kept as they are. It'd be wrong to destroy such a beautiful house that means so much to people."

"...and I hate Mycroft getting his own way," Sherlock added. John rolled his eyes as Sherlock swanned out of the door.

"Mycroft?! You will not be turning this house into one of your projects." He shouted down the stairs, head over the banister. "It stays as it is, and if you don't agree, I won't be going down without a fight!" Sherlock couldn't help but grin at John.

He would win this one.

No one messes with his Empty House.


End file.
